


Angel With Demonic Company

by Rykura



Series: Angel With the Strange Wings [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: ;n;, Bronzeshipping, Gemshipping, M/M, each chapter is like 6k words cause I can't control myself, more tags will be added as it goes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 17:07:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17871311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rykura/pseuds/Rykura
Summary: Thief King.Ryou found the title extremely childish for the demon. But then, over the next few weeks he spent with him, Ryou came to realize when the demon was truly comfortable and at ease, childishness was a good sign. There were many things he came to realize about his new proprietor.





	Angel With Demonic Company

Thief King. 

Ryou found the title extremely childish for the demon. But then, over the next few weeks he spent with him, Ryou came to realize when the demon was truly comfortable and at ease, childishness was a good sign. There were many things he came to realize about his new proprietor.  

He liked meat, raw meat of course, though he mentioned he had quite the taste for roast pig before he became a demon. Raw meat and fear was all he could manage to eat now. And yes,  _fear_. Normal demons terrorized and protected the worst people in the world so fear, anguish and terror would spread, and their bellies would fill. For a moment they would finally feel sated. But then the fear would pass, the angels would swoop in and make things right and the hole in their souls would return with a vengeance. They could never get enough. The Thief King guessed he could eat raw meat as well because he was once an angel, a fact that had long since been confirmed. 

The demon was, in fact, quite the collector. He truly did live up to his made-up title. After Ryou had made a passing mention of how little number of valuables there were in the room he was first held in, the demon had taken him immediately to his much bigger stash to show off. The room was filled, quite literally, with gold trinkets, coins and other such treasures covering the floor in a blanket of metallic yellow. Jewels were strewn around carelessly, though the bigger ones were organized in cliché treasure chests and less cliché glass boxes that the demon eagerly showed off to him. There was an extravagant white and gold trim closet filled with elegant robes and clothes of all ages. Ryou actually had to commend him for his work and then immediately regret it as the demon chose then as a perfect time to play dress up.  

“You want to go out?” The demon dangled a piece of clothing so revealing it might as well have been a couple of tattered strips of silk. “I’ll take you out for a walk if you put this on.” Ryou didn’t appreciate his bargaining as if with a child, nor his tone as though talking to an adoring pet.  

“You couldn’t tempt me with coming back to life to get me to wear that outside,” Ryou said frankly, although he only half meant it. He’d walk around naked for every demon and angel in the three realms to see if he could be brought back to life. But that was impossible, and he certainly wasn’t going to do it for this one demon’s amusement. “And for the millionth time would you stop treating me like a pet!”  

“But you want to go outside don’t you? It’s been a few weeks hasn’t it?” The demon persisted. Ryou rolled his eyes before looking away from the demon and skimming over the contents in the closet once more. He reached forward and picked out a cobalt blue piece of clothing with lighter blue patterns stitched in, glanced over it to make sure it wasn’t as frugal as what the demon held and strode over to the lavish changing screen with head raised indignantly.  

“I’ll put  _this_  on, but not that. It’s not even in my color scheme.”  

“Really? I think you’d look  _impossible_  to resist in red.” The demon tossed the strips of scarlet cloth haphazardly back into the open closet and crossed his arms, a smirk sitting placidly on his face.  

“Red may work for you,” Ryou said as he stripped behind the screen, making sure to keep his back turned so his wings could block the demons view of his bare figure through the near see through paper. “But I’ve been told cooler colors work best for me.”  

“I assume you were told that when you were human; well humans don’t know  _shit_. They cover themselves from head to toe unless they’re looking for someone to fuck. I miss the good old days when you could walk around in nothing but sandals and a loincloth and no one would care.”  

Ryou briefly wondered at how old the demon was as he slipped the outfit on before he realized how revealing it still was, his face turning a shade darker with embarrassment and a hint of dread. It turned out to be a simple maxi skirt and woman’s two-piece top; the thick, luscious blue fabric reaching down his front and back stretched from right below his navel perfectly down to his ankles, but it was cut on the sides just an inch or so from the top so his legs were practically fully bare. The outfit was obviously meant to be for a girl, he soon realized, as the top part wrapped around his neck and torso like the top to a woman’s swimsuit; extra fabric reaching around the back so as to leave room for breasts, and the underwear was like the second part to a two piece.  

Basically, he was wearing a girl's swimsuit with a floor-length skirt on top.  

“When you die, reproduction kind of becomes a null point, at least for angels,” the demon continued as Ryou smoothed out the material. “Demons still get a kick out of it though. And you’ve heard of succubus's, haven’t you?”  

“They’re real?” Ryou inquired as he looked at himself in the mirror behind the screen. The silver cuffs adorning his forearms, upper arms, and ankles complimented the outfit nicely, but he still found himself disconcerted by the amount of skin it showed off.  

“Very. Though there aren’t many nowadays. I killed one once, before I became a demon. She kept trying to seduce me, then I stuck a sword in her throat… thinking back on it she probably liked that.” Ryou came out from behind the screen and gave him a bland look.  

“You aren’t much of a lady's man, hm?” The demon snorted as he eyed him from head to toe. Ryou always got flustered when he caught the demon looking at him like this, because he always got this embarrassing look in his eye. Embarrassing for Ryou, not for the demon.  

“You could say that,” he purred, those violet eyes glimmering.  

“Am I going to have to go out wearing this?” Ryou asked pensively, trying to ignore the look as usual. “It’s not really an outfit meant for fighting.”  

“Yes. And no one will attack you with me around.”  

“Or flying…”  

“We won’t be leaving the surface. A nice walk through the woods is all it will be. You need your sun after all.” Ryou gave him a dubious look.  

The angel hadn’t made an attempt to flee the underground labyrinth, despite it belonging to a demon. He found it was no different from the arrangement he had made with the demon he’d given his sword to, but now it was underground, hidden; much safer, though he had to come in contact with the new demon much more. The Thief King wasn’t terrible to live with, however.  

For the first few weeks he never left, constantly observing and entertaining himself with the angel’s presence. From the get-go, Ryou noticed he had no concept of personal space; waking up to find the demon watching him nap, observing him while he tidied up and organized in boredom, and silently appearing next to him, sniffing his hair or running a clawed hand through it while he was lost in thought. He seemed to have a small obsession with his hair.  

Despite his many objections and struggling during the process, the demon managed to wash him every other day, paying close, seemingly  _deliberate_ attention to his hair and wings. Ryou had mixed feelings about the treatment as it was both pleasurable and  _extremely_ embarrassing.  

After those weeks, the demon left, for so long Ryou believed he had left for good. Both angel and demon were surprised to see each other again after the Thief King returned to find Ryou curled up in the main chamber, napping in the sunlight as usual.  

 _“I would have tracked you down,” the demon had said. “But I didn’t expect to find you still here.”_  

 _“It’s safe,”_ _Ryou_ _had replied, rubbing his eyes after sitting up with a big yawn. “And I figured if you left for good_ _,_ _I’d make the place my own.”_  

 _The demon crouched down from where he was standing over him, hands moving from his hips to hang off his knees, leaning in close to_ _the angel’s_ _face with a smirk._  

 _“As if I’d leave all my treasures to rot or be potentially stolen, especially a rare gem such as yourself.”_ _Ryou_ _leaned back with a light blush at that. “I just left to eat. Usually I need to eat every other day to stay in control of myself but then I also had to keep an eye on you.”_  

 _“I wouldn’t mind you leaving every once in a while,”_ _Ryou_ _replied, looking up at him blandly and the demon leaned back casually with a chuckle._  

 _“Of course you wouldn’t.”_  

Since then the demon would leave for a few hours every other day to eat and then they would spend the rest of the day tip toeing around each other. Well, Ryou tiptoed around him, the demon would go about his own business and occasionally mess with him. 

Like just then.  

“It’s night time,” Ryou glared around at the dark woods surrounding them, feeling his eye twitch at the denial of the sun he’d been craving.  

“So it seems,” the demon sighed, folding in his wings and placing the angel down on the cool grass. Ryou relished the feeling of it as the soft pads of his feet had only felt the cold hardness of stone and cement for the last couple weeks. It was an abundant relief, despite the disappointment of it being night. The Thief King shrugged cordially. “Just means we’ll stay out until the sun rises.”  

“I don’t think it’s safe for me to be outside at night,” Ryou lamented, nervously rubbing his arms as the cool air tickled his skin. He honestly didn’t blame the demon for bringing him out at night. They both had a warped sense of time, especially being immortals who lived underground. There was also the fact that he basically slept all day under the sun and stayed awake during the night.  

“I told you,” the demon came up next to him and pulled the angel against his side with a clawed hand on his hip. “You’re fine as long as you’re with me.”  

Ryou moved out of the hold with a flustered blush. “Alright,” he sighed, not entirely convinced but willing to risk it for a stroll through the woods, which he honestly wanted. He started walking, thinking he might hear a creek a ways off and began to head towards it. He was startled to find the demon walking by his side when he looked around for him, feet completely silent on the grass.  

“Can you stop doing that?” Ryou asked. The demon raised a brow looking down at him. He was just a few inches taller than Ryou, but he liked to think it was because his feet were so... beastly. “You keep spooking me, I never hear you come up.”  

“Good to know. I  _am_ a thief. Silence is key.” Ryou hummed nervously before spotting glittering water through the trees and hurrying forward to find it was actually a river; even better.  

He fell to his knees next to the rushing water and leaned forward, sticking his hand in to wave around and feel the water glide around his fingers. The water was cool, not icy like it might be in winter, and he sighed at the pleasurable feeling, sticking more and more of his arm in until he might as well have fallen in.  

He yelped as a push from behind sent him falling face first into the river, a move he should have anticipated when being escorted by a childish demon. The next moment he found himself looking wild eyed up at the cheeky devil, laughing hysterically at his own prank until Ryou’s face hardened with his own playful smile and he snatched up the demon’s hand and pulled him in as well.  

The Thief King surged up out of the river, body and horns covered in a sheen of water and sparkling under the moonlight as he laughed maniacally. He retaliated with a huge wave of water, completely drenching Ryou and the two started a splash fight until the angel started up a laugh of his own. He became overcome with the feeling of being alive and  _normal_ for the first time since he died, at least until the Thief King stopped splashing.  

Ryou’s splashes trailed off and he peeked an eye open when the other’s actions stalled, tilting his head at him when he found the demon just staring at him, eyes sparkling with an unreadable expression.  

“What?” Ryou asked, panting slightly from the fight. The demon didn’t answer. He got distracted, however, as he felt the river water tugging at the cloth around his hips, making it heavy and harder to hold up and he bundled it up in a panic.  

“Oh shoot!” He hissed with a blush as he stood in the shallow water and headed for the shore to wring out the skirt. “I  _knew_ I shouldn’t have put this on,” he muttered distastefully and heard the water splash as the Thief King stood behind him and waded to shore towards him. 

“You might not like it, but even if it’s not red,” Ryou’s face flushed as he felt something, not quite a heart or an organ, but  _something_ set off like a jackhammer in his chest as the demon came up and hugged him from behind, whispering into his ear the end of his sentence. “It still makes you look  _impossible_  to resist.” Ryou made a high sound in his throat that sounded dangerously like a whimper as he felt the water drip from the demon's hot skin down his back and noticed the brush of his scalene tail on his leg. Was this flirting? Was the Thief King...  _seriously_ coming onto him?  

Ryou’s mind was too muddled to comprehend why the Thief King’s head perked up, his hand slipping from around Ryou’s torso to hold his shoulder as he glanced around, aura and body suddenly becoming tense. He could only breathe a sigh of relief when he whispered a soft ‘be right back’ and disappeared from behind him, skirting off into the trees.  

He desperately tried to distract himself from the heat of the passing moment by wringing out his skirt and hair of river water until he realized he had been alone for quite some time and looked around into the dark forest nervously.  

“Hello?” His wings twitched towards himself with the sudden wave of evil energy that came with the approach of a demon. It was a dark energy he was not familiar with unlike the Thief King’s whose aura he’d become accustomed to. This energy was… bigger. It was  _heavy_ , and malicious, where the Thief King’s was... well, he could only describe it as warm and... steady.  

“Thief King…?” Ryou called quietly into the trees which seemed to be closing in around him; getting darker. He took a step back and lifted his wings as though to fly, hell be it if anyone looked up his skirt, when a chuckling growl froze him in place.  

Two gold eyes shone from the trees and Ryou barely had time to gasp before the demon darted out of the canopy, landed hard on the moonlit grass and began ripping out chunks of grass and dirt as he barreled forward, face twisted with an eager smile.  

Ryou cried out in alarm, wings falling instead of spreading to take off from the immobilizing fear that coursed through him and mortal world be damned why did he think it was a good idea to steal and then  _give away_ a sword? Why was he here and not ‘sipping on lotus wine’ up in the celestial realm? Why didn't he just end his lonesome existence and start over through reincarnation? Why did he bargain for  _protection_ with demons instead of ask them to  _end_ his life?  

These kinds of thoughts shot through his mind as time seemed to slow with the adrenaline.  

Then the Thief King shot out from above the trees and dove down on the demon, colliding with them a mere couple meters before they reached Ryou and rolled with them along the ground.  

Ryou felt his knees buckle with relief after a moment of realization but he stumbled to keep himself standing, gasping in the chilled air to get his mind working again and give him enough brain function to think of running.  

He got a few shaky steps sideways towards the way they’d come, eyes stuck on the two tangling demons, when he felt a less prominent, noticeably lighter but undeniably  _demonic_ energy behind him and turned around just in time to get tackled to the ground. He let out a choked cry as a clawed hand squeezed around his throat, wings pinned wings, tail held down bare legs and hips held down hips as the demon leaned down with a low growl and scrutinized his face with narrow lilac eyes, slitted pupils wide with... curiosity?  

“Ishtar don’t you dare!” He heard Thief King call out angrily, though Ryou couldn’t look away from his imminent demise long enough to look at him. The demon blinked, loosening the hold on his throat and poised body relaxing slightly on top of him as they sat up and looked over their shoulder.  

“Did you get a pet angel?” The demon called incredulously. Apparently, they knew each other, though Ryou didn’t know if it was a relationship in his favor.  

Ryou took a shaky breath and glanced over just in time to see the Thief King kick the other assailant far enough off him to get up and dart over with a vicious snarl. The demon atop him jumped off and backed away smartly as the thief came between them and spread his wings in a show of threatening protection.  

“Touch him and I’ll rip all the  _precious_ hair out of your  _pretty little head,_ ” he hissed as Ryou shakily pushed himself up to sit on his knees and rub his tender throat, his view of both foreign demons blocked by the demon’s giant leathery wings.  

“You _tamed_ an angel?” A much darker, more convoluted voice rose from behind the Thief King. Ryou assumed it belonged to the demon the Thief King had been rolling around with and as he peeked over one of his wings, he saw them walk up casually behind the smaller demon, eyes glowing gold in the darkness, pupils dilated with amusement and smile wide and cynical.  

The Thief King’s growl intensified in a way Ryou had never heard, seeming to double over as though two different voices were overlapping with a slight hiss behind it. Even when he spoke, it stayed in that… unsettling tone. 

“It’s a bit more complicated than that.” 

“He doesn’t look like much to tame in the first place,” the smaller demon commented. “What's a weakling like that doing in the mortal realm?” The Thief King lowered his wings to turn and help up Ryou, his grip tight on his arm and hand as he held him steady. Ryou’s legs felt weak from the scare, though the demon’s tone also added to the unsteadiness in his legs.  

“What are two blowhard assholes like  _you_  doing in the mortal realm?” The Thief King threw back, his voice returning to that normal low and cool tone as he kept himself between Ryou and the demons. The taller demon chuckled. 

“Oh, I'm sorry, were we interrupting?” He teased, though ultimately went ignored as the Thief King’s dangerously unamused expression prompted the smaller demon to continue.  

“We came to visit. Thought it had been too long.” 

“It’s never long enough with you two,” the thief griped.  

“She doesn’t know your name, right?”  

“ _He_  doesn’t, no.” 

“ _He_ , hm?” The Thief King growled and stepped a bit in front of Ryou as the taller demon leaned down to look at the boy with alarming curiosity.  

“Y… You know each other’s names?” Ryou asked cautiously, holding onto the Thief King’s bicep to steady his shaky stand.  

“Of course,” the smaller demon said with a flick of his hand and cock of his hip, the jewelry lining his arms jingling as he did so. “We’ve known each other long enough.”  

“H-how long?”  

“A few hundred years or so. He doesn’t know  _your_  name does he?” Ryou paused and realized no, the demon  _didn’t_ know his name. They’d been isolated together all this time so they never really needed to address each other with specifics, they would just call for the other’s attention. Although when they  _did_ need to use names, the Thief King called him by his made-up pet name, which the angel despised, retorting with his own.  

“N...No…” Ryou noticed the Thief King look down at him in his peripherals.  

The gold-eyed demon clicked his tongue and pouted disappointedly. “Well what do you call him then?” He asked, question pointed at the Thief King.  

“Bunny.” Ryou glared at the smirking demon at the nickname. “Because he looked like a scared little bunny when I stole him.”  

“Stole him?” The shorter demon tilted his head.  

“Some demons had him on the run and I promptly scooped him up from the fray.”  

“I’ve got to hear about this!” The taller blonde chortled. Ryou scowled at the three demons but couldn’t stop himself from looking around at the dark tree line, still nervous after the ambush and cautious of any more demons that might have followed.  

“Can we go back down?” he whispered to the Thief King.  

“Back down?” The shorter demon asked incredulously. “You want to go back?”  

“Yeah I guess we should,” The Thief King sighed and when he picked up Ryou in his signature bridal style the angel didn’t complain, in fact he clung onto the demon as he took off for the short trip back to the chamber, despite the two foreign demons curious stares. 

They all landed in the chamber, the low burning torches flaring further to life as the thief set Ryou down. He called after him as the angel muttered a thanks before immediately heading for one of the passageways to change clothes.  

“Where’re you going?” 

“I didn’t want to wear something like this in the first place,” Ryou griped, flapping a hand indignantly. “As if I’m wearing it when there’s…” He eyed the two demons, meeting amused gazes. The three of them together looked like a pack of hungry hyena’s excited to play with their food. “Guests.” He muttered before walking off to change.  

Newly dressed in his usual white robes and silver cuffs, he arrived back in the main chamber to find the three demons gone. Moonlight streamed in through the skylight and he walked forward to enjoy the cool energy it gave off for a moment before heading for the bedroom chamber. He didn’t find anyone there either, so he walked back down to the main chamber and looked around with his hands on his hips.  

There were four passages in the main chamber and he had only ever explored two; the one leading to the bedroom and the one to the labyrinth of other rooms where he kept his stash and such. There was one passage the demon had absolutely forbade him from going down and Ryou didn't ask about it, accepting his one rule. Ryou could sense that they weren’t down there; although the energy in both unexplored halls was dark, one was cold and the other was warm, the warm signifying the thief’s life force and he followed it.  

As he walked down he found the room growing warmer and torches becoming redder and his mind flashes back to the vision he’d had of the Thief King all those weeks ago. He hadn’t had another vision since that day, despite all the sleeping he had done since then, but now the foggy, tingling pressure that he recognized from that dream was returning, flowing over him like a foamy ocean wave and his steps slowed as the stone hallway shifted from cold grey stones to a dark red hue. His vision swayed like he was shifting in and out of reality until eventually it stayed in that more hellish light and voices filtered through a waterfall of rushing blood he didn’t notice filled his ears until he focused on the words.  

 _“_ _So_ _this plan of yours…”_ He recognized that voice, it was the tall blonde demon.  

 _“After this I might be able to live a little more contently.”_ And that was the Thief King... 

 _“I_ _t’s cute, that you consider this_ living _. I_ _don’t care what it’s for, I’m always up for a good night of…_ _unsolicited tribulation_.” 

 _“You’re a wicked bastard, you know that Kek?”_  

 _“You love me.”_  

 _“I don’t love anyone.”_  

The vision was brief, he didn’t even see the speakers, just heard their disembodied voices drift through the hall like... a memory.  

Ryou blinked back into his world; back to gold firelight flickering on shadowy grey stone. During his vision he must have skipped the line where the bricked narrow hallway melded into overarching walls; where the ceiling rose, and he had enough space to stretch he his wings out and still be comfortable. 

He stood, arms limp at his sides, bare feet cold on the stone, the conversation ringing through his mind.  

 _“You love me.”_  

 _“I don’t love anyone.”_ That was… the Thief King, definitely.  

That  _something_ , not an organ or a heart but  _something_ close to it, was weighed down and filled with... It was warm in his chest but also a little suffocating... 

“Oh…” It was  _hurt_. He was hopeful and he got hurt.  

But what was he hopeful for anyway? He was a cheeky demon, turned  _into_ one in fact. He was too broken to be loved, or to love others... 

More voices drifted to his ears, but they were in the present, from further down the hallway he stood in.  

He continued forward until he reached the room, though it was less of a room and more of a cavern. The conversation was lost to him as he looked astounded around the hall, lit only by a few rays of moonlight streaming in through the cracked ceiling.  

Tall pillars lined a stretching hallway, so expansive and roomy he could fly around them like an obstacle course. They towered above into an overarching ceiling that looked as though to have intricate designs carved into it, though it was too dark, and they were too meddled and far away for Ryou to discern clearly.  

Lining the top of the walls were overgrown, unmanaged flower beds; full branches streaming down the walls and seeding into crevices and cracks, sprouting flowers and plant life. Semicircle water fountains connected the floor to the walls, dusty and dried out, long since abandoned like the stone tables and benches carved into the ground scattered nearby them.  

Two of the pillars were toppled and many of those tables were cracked along the middle or turned to rubble. The stairs leading down into a sealed off doorway were covered in dust and bits of stone and rock. This was the entrance Ryou suspected there being, but it looked like the Thief King had made sure it was long since closed off.  

Speaking of, the Thief King himself was standing not too far off, arms crossed and glaring at the two newcomers who lounged on one of the fallen pillars like napping cats.  

“Ah! Look who decided to join us,” the taller blond exclaimed, and both the smaller blonde and the Thief King looked to him in surprise. He stepped carefully around bits of debris, down the stairs and towards the silver haired demon.  

“I’ve never been in here before,” he commented, still glancing around amazedly.  

“Really? How long have you lived here, little bunny?” Ryou’s wandering eyes flicked over to the demon balefully.  

“A month...”  _Pineapple head._  Ryou kept the insult inside his own head to save from being mauled.  

“Well, that isn’t long at all! And look at you, so well trained.” Ryou bristled at the demon’s words and the Thief King scoffed.  

“Knock it off you filthy mongrel.”  

“Be happy he hasn’t  _touched_ him yet,” the smaller blonde demon grumbled but his scarier companion seemed not to take notice of either of them in favor of staring at Ryou with hungry eyes. The angel hummed nervously and took a step back behind the Thief King before continuing to look around.  

“What’s your story anyway?” The shorter blonde continued. “Why are you here and not in the celestial realm sleeping on a bed made of clouds?” He switched to point at the Thief King accusingly. “Did you take his sword so he can’t leave?” Ryou began to sulk at the new topic of discussion as the Thief King’s mouth twisted into a smirk. Hindsight was 20-20 and he was getting tired of his terrible past decisions.  

“You’re going to love this,” the demon started, Ryou glowering at his side. “He wanted to live a little longer in the mortal world, so he decided step one,  _steal_ a sword, then step two, give it away to a  _demon_ for protection.” The blonde’s expression smoothed over into shock while his bigger companion started chortling and laughing uncontrollably. “Then, step  _three_ , get chased by some demons with no way to escape and get caught by one.”  

“It wasn’t my fault,” Ryou muttered defensively, arms crossed and eyes ever narrowed in annoyance. “I  _did_ have a way to escape,  _you_ cut me off! And I can’t resist a distress signal,  _especially_ one that caught me while I was sleeping.”  

“Who just gives a demon a holy sword?” The Thief King asked with a playful smile, throwing his hands up from where his arms had been crossed the whole time.  

“He seemed nice enough. He didn’t attack me at first glance.”  

“You can’t just make friends with any demon who doesn’t attack on sight. What if they have other motives?”  

“Like you?” Ryou couldn’t stop the question from leaving his lips. After tonight he was positive the demon had other motives for his keeping the angel. But then… 

 _“I don’t love anyone.”_  

He didn’t really want to care about that if it didn’t lead anywhere.  

But the demon just smirked, though Ryou thought it was a little fake. “I still haven’t found a tank big enough to keep you in, I’m working with what I have until then.”  

“You are such a…” Ryou threw his hands up himself with an exasperated groan.  

“You two bicker like an old married couple,” the shorter blonde muttered offhandedly.  

“Well- he  _is_ hundreds of years old,” Ryou said, pointing accusingly at the cheeky thief. The accused demon just gave him a sidelong look, the smirk falling off his face ever so slightly though Ryou didn’t see it from where he was huffing.  

“Mhm, and how old are you?” Ryou stalled at the question.  

“Uh… do you know the date?”  

“No?”  

The wild haired demon snorted again at the question and Ryou was reminded once again of the surrounding creature’s immortality. Also, they had probably just come from the Shadow Realm, a place he knew only vaguely about from his time with Kisara in the Celestial Realm.  

 _“Where angels stay here, in the Celestial Realm, demons have their own dwelling called the_ Shadow Realm. _”_  

 _“_ _That’s l_ _ike… Hell?”_  

 _“That_ _i_ _s the mortal term for it, but it is quite different from the mortal depiction of Hell.”_  

 _“How so?”_  

 _“Hell is a place of suffering_ _or punishment, but_ _the Shadow Realm is a place of holding_ _,_ _as is all the Realms. Angels live in the Celestial Realm, mortals live in the Mortal Realm and demons live in the Shadow Realm.”_  

 _“How is that different?’_  

 _“Suffering_ _or punishment_ _is not isolated to just the_ _Shadow_ _Realm. You may suffer, hurt_ _... or even love_ _in_ all  _the realms.”_  

 _“Even here?”_  

 _“Even here.”_  

He worriedly wondered if there was a public entrance or exit to the Shadow Realm somewhere nearby.  

“Then… I guess around nineteen. My birthday is in September so it probably passed already.” 

“Birthday?” The gold eyed demon scoffed. “Who cares about birthdays, you should start counting from your  _death_ day!”  

“Only nineteen?” The other blonde asked with a more serious tone and Ryou nodded numbly.  

“I died over a year ago.” Ryou watched the demon’s lilac eyes flick over to the Thief King with a look he couldn’t read. “I don’t know which day I died so… I’m going to count the days I was alive.”  

“Shame.” The amethyst eyed demon smacked his companion in the arm, berating him for his lack of empathy but the other demon just raised an eyebrow at him, unaffected.  

“What can I call you two, by the way?” Ryou asked, moving past the uncomfortable topic.  

“You can call me... Namu, and you can call him…” The demon, Namu, smiled as a thought came to him. “Melvin.” The other demons smirk immediately fell from his smug face and he pushed himself up on the fallen pillar, glaring at the other demon offendedly.  

“Like hell!”  

“What’s wrong Melvin?” Thief King smirked, the amused glimmer returning to his eyes. “Melvin mad? Melvin don’t like his name?” The demon,  _Melvin_ , whipped towards him with fierce eyes and growled.  

“ _Shut the fuck up!_ ” He lunged off his pillar like a big cat and tackled the laughing Thief King, both tumbling to the floor and rolling across the stone and rubble in a mess of tangling limbs and flying claws. Ryou stepped quickly away from the scuffle and watched as they rolled around like two lion siblings having a playfight, claws and teeth just as dangerous but ignored and avoided.  

“So you and him fuck right?” Ryou whipped his attention to Namu and shook his head hard enough he could have tricked himself into thinking the room was caving in.  

“No way!” He cried, a blush rushing to face. The demon nodded though his expression told the angel he didn’t much buy it, making him blush more.  

“Then you two just live together down here?” He asked doubtfully.  

“Yes!” Ryou sighed, willing his face to cool from the sudden suggestion. “I don’t really have anywhere else to go. Maybe my hometown but the demon there has probably already forgotten about me...”  

“The one you gave your sword to?” Ryou nodded. “How‘d you do that anyway? Make a deal with a devil?”  

The Thief King had managed to untangle himself from Melvin and latched onto one of the still standing pillars, clawing up it like a lizard with the other demon hot on his tail, literally.  

“Well... I’d been spying on him for a month, I guess not very discreetly, and since he avoids fighting too, he just confronted me one day and we made a deal. Then I got caught in a distress signal and left to follow it against my will. I probably could have made it back to the town and he could have dealt with those demons chasing me, but then Thief King cut me off.” Said Thief King was now climbing along the ceiling as though completely natural, a sight that would have terrified Ryou if he hadn’t known the demon.  

He and Melvin continued to chase each other around the cavern, darting between pillars and climbing along the walls. It was like watching children play, menacing, terrifying, clawed, fully grown children.  

“You’re not very lucky hm?” Ryou sighed. 

“I died at seventeen, what do you think?”  

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧


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